Gates: Not Much To Show For $5B Spent On Education 496
theodp writes "Since 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has poured some $5 billion into education grants and scholarships. Ten years into his record-breaking philanthropic push for school reform, the WSJ reports that Bill Gates is sober about the investment and willing to admit some missteps. 'I applaud people for coming into this space,' said Gates, 'but unfortunately it hasn't led to significant improvements.' This understanding of just how little influence seemingly large donations can have has led the foundation to rethink its focus in recent years. Instead of trying to buy systemic reform with school-level investments, a new goal is to leverage private money in a way that redirects how public education dollars are spent. Despite the good intentions, some are expressing concerns about how billionaires and the Gates Foundation rule our schools, including the lack of transparency and spotty track record of the wealthy would-be reformers. Perhaps Gates should consider funding a skunkworks educational project for retired Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie, who was working on networked, self-paced computer assisted instruction in 1974 — 36 years before Bill and Google discovered Khan Academy!"
Goes to prove the point . . . (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Goes to prove the point . . . (Score:5, Informative)
One word: Parents.
Re:What, no one size fits all solution? (Score:2, Informative)
Thanks for the soundbite. However, no one is talking about that misguided attempt to normalize test scores across the nation. They're a useless metric that proves nothing.
What is being discussed is solid: Everyone learns differently, and these differences need to be recognized and allowed for as much as possible. Telling someone they'll never be something is a stupid plan and will never pan out in the long run. (Although some kids will overperform just to prove you wrong - this approach could work for those with a dominant personality type)
What About The Experts? (Score:2, Informative)
One of the things that's stunning about all the education reform right now is that there's a critical group not at the table right now: teachers! This top down reform isn't working because these are solutions coming from people who aren't in the trenches actually teaching kids. As a teacher (6–8 grade English, which means the No Child Left Behind target is squarely painted on my forehead) I'm stunned at the obtuseness of all these solutions.
Testing kids to death and then evaluating teachers based on their students' solutions is a terrible strategy. This automatically creates a conflict of interest. Teachers won't want to work with challenging students. Teachers will teach to the test instead of “teaching” in order to avoid negative reviews. Why would I as a teacher even want to teach challenging students if I could very likely get fired if they don't do well?
There are many good ideas out there for improving education, but please let's stop shoving “improvements” down teachers' throats. This won't work.
The solutions that work cost money (some): smaller classes, better pay for teachers, more teacher autonomy to help students in need and to make decisions that help education as a whole. Yes, this means you'll have to trust teachers to make those good decisions, but these *are* the experts. (Yes, I know teachers' unions can be a drag to work with. I'm in one, and even as a member I find it a drag sometimes.) People get involved with teaching to help young people, teach, and to share what they know, not to collect a huge paycheck. Let's let them come up with the solutions, not people who haven't spent thousands of hours in front of the classroom.
I don't begrudge Mr. Gates's involvement with education and his money is certainly welcomed. However, even though I am a former IT worker, I wouldn't humiliate myself by telling him how to program and build operating systems. That's his business and expertise. However, if he's going to involve himself and spend some money in my profession, perhaps he should talk to more experts. Hint: they're not behind desks or collecting consultant fees; they're standing in front of children every day, teaching.
-Ian
www.teachthefantastic.blogspot.com